“I like heels,” I defended.
“You didn’t wear your hair down,” Muddy pointed out.“Why not?”
“So it didn’t get in the way ...”
“Uh huh.Or you wanted to show off your neck,” Muddy said.“Necks are sexy.Red lipstick draws the eye to your pouty mouth.”
“You’re right, Muddy,” Hadley said.“Wynishot for Archer.”
“And Archer is hot for Wyn,” Muddy said.
“Oh, definitely,” Poet agreed.“Brooks and I have already talked about that.”
I groaned.“You all are discussing my sex life?”
“You mean your lack of one,” Muddy said with a smirk.
“You think I should end the penis embargo?”I asked her.“He’s a single dad trying to figure it out.It’ll make everything more complicated if we cross that line.”
“You shouldn’t have gone on a date with him last night if you didn’t want to cross the line,” Muddy pointed out.“Talk about mixed signals.”
“It wasn’t a date.”
“Okay.”Muddy cocked her head to the side.“Did he ask you on a date?Without Lenni?”
I clamped my mouth shut.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”Muddy grinned.“I’m always right.”
“You’re not always right,” I muttered.
“Yeah, she is,” Hadley said.“It’s annoying actually.”
“You learn a lot after seventy trips around the sun,” Muddy said.“But I think I know the real problem with you.”
“Oh good, enlighten me,” I said, sarcasm dripping from my tone.
“I’m not trying to make you defensive,” Muddy said.“But I guess I have a knack for that.Your problem isn’t that you’re hot for Archer.It’s that you have real feelings for him.Don’t you?”
“You know what I love about you?”I placed another box of homemade candles in antique china teacups into the hatchback of Poet’s car.
“My wardrobe?”she asked.
“No one can pull off grandpa sweaters quite like you,” I said with a smile.“But no.What I love about you is that you had an idea and you just dove in.You did that when you decided to open the bookstore, and you decided to do that when you saw a video on how to make candles.”
Poet’s shoulders straightened and she beamed.“Thanks.I’m trying this new thing in life.”
“What thing is that?”
“Making myself happy.As long as it doesn’t result in a felony, everything’s pretty much fair game.”
I laughed.
She looked at her cell phone and frowned.
“What’s that face for?”I asked.
“Brooks hasn’t texted me in more than an hour.”
